Scientists Film First Wild Goblin Shark in 2019, Study Finds — Goblin Shark Deep Sea Sighting
Scientists have documented the first goblin shark deep sea sighting on video in the wild, using footage from 2019 and 2024 that was later tied to the species in a new study. The animal, also known as Mitsukurina owstoni, had previously been seen only in fisheries or in videos taken after capture.
The study gives the clearest wild record yet of a shark that can reach 10 to 12 feet and has jaws that can slingshot forward to grab prey. It also points to two places where the species lives: a seamount near Jarvis Island and the slope of the Tonga Trench.
Aaron Judah and the 2019 footage
Aaron Judah, a PhD candidate at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and the study’s lead author, said the Central Pacific sighting would be a large range extension for the animal. He said, “I was shocked because this species is not known from the Central Pacific, and this would be an enormous range extension for the animal.”
The 2019 video came from a remotely operated vehicle operated by EV Nautilus near an unnamed seamount close to Jarvis Island, a 1.7-square-mile coral island in the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument. The shark was recorded about three-quarters of a mile below the surface, and researchers initially had no identification for it.
Jarvis Island and Tonga Trench
Steve Auscavitch, a PhD scientist at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, said the team did not understand what it had seen at the time. “At the time no one on board really knew the significance of what we had just seen,” he said.
Judah later heard that footage of what might be a goblin shark was sitting in the database his lab manages. In 2024, baited camera footage captured another goblin shark along the slope of the Tonga Trench, about 1,250 miles southwest of Jarvis Island.
Judah said that was the first time scientists saw the species living on trench slopes. The new study also made the first peer-reviewed, fully confirmed video record of a live goblin shark in its natural habitat, adding evidence that the species uses seamounts and trench slopes as habitat.
James Lea on rare sightings
The goblin shark is the last surviving member of the ancient shark family Mitsukurinidae, which traces back about 125 million years. Its rostrum is covered in Ampullae of Lorenzini, which help it search for squid, fish and crustaceans in the dark.
James Lea, chief executive officer of the Save Our Seas Foundation, said the animal is usually seen far from the setting of this study. “We normally only ever really find them in fisheries, and rarely at that,” he said. The new footage changes the record from scattered encounters to two separate sightings in the open ocean.
